1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to switched mode power converter circuits, and more particularly, to a phase-shifted half bridge resonant converter that provides a DC output voltage having minimal ripple.
2. Description of Related Art
Switched mode power converters are known in the art to convert an available direct current (DC) level voltage to another DC level voltage. A switched mode power converter provides a regulated DC output voltage to a load by selectively storing energy in an inductor coupled to the load by switching the flow of current into the inductor. A resonant converter is one particular type of switched mode power converter that includes a resonant circuit including a capacitor and an inductor. Current is periodically delivered to the resonant circuit by operation of one or more power switches typically provided by MOSFET transistors. The load may be isolated from the resonant circuit using a transformer having a primary winding that provides all or part of the inductance portion of the resonant circuit. A sinusoidal current waveform present on the secondary winding of the transformer is rectified and delivered to the load as a DC output. The output voltage and/or current may be regulated in response to changing load conditions by altering the switching frequency applied to the power switch to thereby control the amount of current delivered to the resonant circuit. Resonant converters are particularly advantageous for high power applications since they produce relatively low electro-magnetic interference (EMI), have almost zero switching losses of the power switches, and have a generally robust design.
A drawback of resonant converter circuits is that the output current generally has ripple that is unacceptable for certain applications. The rectified sinusoidal waveform is smoothed by a filter capacitor coupled in parallel with the load. But, the ripple current into the filter capacitor is relatively large in comparison with the DC output current. The filter capacitor must remove a relatively large portion of the current delivered from the resonant circuit, resulting in inefficiency of the resonant converter circuit and increasing the size and capacity of the filter capacitor. These drawbacks are further exacerbated when the output power or output current of the resonant converter circuit is very high. Moreover, the lifetime of the filter capacitor is significantly reduced if the ripple current is too high, particularly when operated at high temperatures.
Another drawback of resonant converter circuits is that they have limited output voltage regulation window. The resonant circuit (LC) has a characteristic Q curve (i.e., impedance vs. frequency). The average switching frequency is set either above or below resonance on the side of the Q curve. Output voltage regulation is accomplished by moving the switching frequency along the side of the Q curve to change the amplitude of the current in the resonant circuit. Thus, the load range of the output corresponds to the frequency range of the resonant circuit. If the resonant circuit has a narrow frequency range, then the load range is also narrow, which makes resonant converters less useful in applications where load varies over a wide range.
Yet another drawback of resonant converter circuits relates to the voltage regulation window under no-load condition. Under this condition, the resonant converter can go into hard switching with increased voltage and current stress on the power switches as well as increases of conducted and radiated noise. In the worst case, the load has to be increased to 20-40% of max load for a proper function of the resonant converter. Also, the voltage stress on the power switches is proportional to the load range. When there is a short of the output voltage, the voltage across the resonant capacitor can quickly rise above the input voltage, causing failure of the power switches.
It would therefore be desirable to overcome these and other drawbacks of prior art resonant converter circuits. More specifically, it would be desirable to provide a resonant converter circuit having reduced ripple current for use in high output power applications. It would also be desirable to provide a resonant converter circuit having improved voltage regulation.